Put simply (always the best way), it’s the piece of paper that distils your brand down to what’s most important about it.
What it is, what’s its purpose, why it’s different, where it fits in, what it aspires to.
Just one piece of paper mind. Not endless charts about brand onions, upper right-hand quadrants, and core values that always seem to be exactly the same even though every brand is completely different.
One piece of paper that everyone in your business - from chairman to receptionist - can understand, buy into, and hold up against everything they do. So that whatever they do is true to the brand.
“One piece of paper you say?”
Well, that sounds simple enough.
Actually it’s anything but. The output - a paragraph or three of plain, jargon-free English - may be simple, but the process and the thinking to get there is exhaustive.
We listen to all the various stakeholders, often all saying different, contradictory things. We gather all the available knowledge. We come at it from every conceivable angle. We put ourselves in your shoes, and then your staff’s, your partners’, your suppliers’ and your customers’. We think about it, we think about our thinking, and then we think about it some more. And eventually we reduce it down to a single positioning statement of total and absolute clarity.
“Do I really need one?”
You absolutely do. If you and your team can’t individually and collectively articulate the who, the what and the why consistently, coherently and convincingly, then how can you expect your customers to know what your brand is all about? If you don’t truly know who or what you are, then no one else will.
Your brand manifesto is your statement of intent - the definitive articulation of what your brand stands for, distinct from your competitors and as motivating to those within your organisation as it is to those who want to buy your product and services.
It is the rock-solid strategic foundation that underpins and informs all that follows. Without that rigour, thinking and focus, everything you do going forward risks being built on shifting sands. #houseofcards
“So who exactly are you?”
We’re Jon Grainger and David Wolff. We’ve worked together in advertising for more than thirty years and in that time have worked for pretty well every kind of client in pretty well every kind of sector - from start-ups to global giants, from electric potato peelers to groundbreaking cancer research. In that time we’ve won nearly 100 awards for both creativity and effectiveness and worked for clients as diverse as Channel 4 and P&G, Waitrose and GSK, Nike and Save the Children.
We started Brand Manifesto because we’d had to sit through too many brand positioning presentations that just about made sense within the confines of their own internal logic, but that we knew simply could not, and would not, translate into engaging, differentiating, brand-advancing, value-adding work in the real world.
At Brand Manifesto we know that it’s not enough for it to make sense, it has to make a difference too.
“And then what?”
A brand manifesto should just be the start. After all, what’s the point of identifying a unique and differentiating positioning if you don’t tell anyone about it?
First it’s really important that everyone internally understands and buys into the newly defined brand. Like we said earlier, if the people who work for the brand don’t “get it” then no one else can be expected to either.
And then what about telling the wider world? So your public can get in on it too.
Cue Jon Grainger and David Wolff again. You see, as well as being the authors of Brand Manifesto they are also the names behind London advertising agency Grainger&Wolff. (In fact, that’s why they set up Brand Manifesto because of the inextricable connection between better strategy and better advertising.) And now that you’ve got something worth saying, who better to help you say it?
You can check out what they've turned all kinds of brand thinking into here.
“So who have Brand Manifesto
brand manifesto’ed for?”
Brand manifestos are confidential internal strategy documents, so it’s not for us to share details on here. Just know that we have worked on successful brand positionings for dozens of businesses, from the world’s largest media company to one of the world’s smallest shoe companies.
Two interesting recent examples (who are happy for us to share their stories) are TOG and the IPA.
TOG (The Office Group) is a serviced office company with a market value of £500,000,000. You can read about what we did for TOG here.
The IPA (the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) is the professional body that represents Britain’s advertising agencies. Endorsements don’t come much better than being entrusted with the advertising of the advertising industry. You can read about what we’ve done for the IPA here.
“Anything else you’d like to say?”
No, we’ll leave the last words with someone else.
“Jon and David have this intuitive sense of people and businesses and they were able to distil down very quickly our voice and our messaging for the manifesto. They captured it brilliantly, working with us to make sure it really belongs to us, but it's also concise and accurate. It's genuinely a piece of work that will help to shape our business as we move forward.” (Charlie Green, co-CEO, The Office Group)
"We at the IPA have been working with Jon and David since the beginning of 2018, and their help in articulating our core purpose has been invaluable. We are delighted with the Brand Manifesto they have developed for us: it summarises, clearly and compellingly, the wide-ranging contribution the IPA makes to our member agencies and the UK advertising industry as a whole." (Paul Bainsfair, Director General, IPA)